TORONTO - The Canadian Catholic television network opened a bureau based in Vatican City on March 19. It is a joint effort of Catholic News Service, the Knights of Columbus, H2O News and Salt + Light.

“Topics of interest to the church and to the world’s faithful pose problems for journalists who are often on deadline, face limits on space and worry about tackling topics deemed taboo,” said Fr. Thomas Rosica, CEO of Salt + Light. “We hope our efforts in Rome will help people read beyond the headlines.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - Determined to stay faithful to Catholic teachings and still enjoy the single life, Catholic Register columnist Dorothy Cummings McLean started a blog at the age of 35 on how to be single and stay seraphic.

A selection of those blog posts from her last year of studies at Boston College are now featured in Seraphic Singles: How I Learned to stop Worrying and Love the Single Life, released by Novalis in March.

TORONTO - There is barely a square inch of free wall space in Bishop Pearse Lacey's North York apartment. The walls are covered with dozens of portrait and landscape paintings, most of which he painted himself.

TORONTO - Some religious communities are turning to the latest technology to help promote vocations.

Fr. Paul McAuley, C.S.Sp., decided to post some videos about TransCanada Province of the Spiritans on YouTube after reading about it in the news recently.

The tale of a priest, the devil, a mine and the mine’s private army has hit the Toronto Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival just as Canada is debating whether it should give taxpayer money and government services to mining companies with poor human rights and environmental records outside Canada.

The Devil Operation, produced and directed by Canadian filmmaker and journalist Stephanie Boyd, adds to a list of recent documentaries that feature a Canadian connection, mining, human rights violations and environmental disaster, including Return to El Salvador, the story of how a protester against a Canadian mine turned up dead, and Under the Rich Earth which explores the use of private paramilitary squads by Canadian mining companies in Ecuador.

As always, five English-language books were shortlisted for this year's Governor General's prize for fiction. The majority deal with war. As Canadians struggle with the tragedy of Afghanistan and our military's foggy role in it, this is not likely a coincidence.

TORONTO - The media today, whether it be newspapers, radio, TV, the movies or the web, is a pervasive, and, some might add, invasive fact of life in the 21st century. Is the incredible influence that the secular media have on our lives all the more evidence that we are turning our backs on God?

TORONTO - Salt + Light Television’s Opus Dei: Decoding God’s Work took the best TV documentary award at the Religion Today Festival in Trento, Italy, Oct. 14.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Artist Elizabeth Adams has been making art for churches for 30 years. Her latest commission, titled Unbind Them, is on view at St. Philip the Apostle Anglican Church in Toronto. Despite her years spent studying in Italy, and her love of Romanesque architecture on display in the front hall of her home and studio, almost none of Adams’ work has seen the inside of a Catholic church.

TORONTO - When Ireland Park opens at the foot of Bathurst Street June 21, the 25-metre-long wall commemorating those who died on Toronto’s waterfront in 1847 will display 663 names. Blank spaces have been left for the 461 whose names have disappeared from the historical record.